March for the Cup is where you will vote on hypothetical playoff matchups in a bracket style setup mimicking the NCAA basketball tournaments. Here is the setup.
I’m going to seed all 31 teams based on the current overall standings with one play in game because of the odd number of teams. You will have a chance to vote on who you think should win the matchup. I’ll give some brief overviews and you’ll use those and your own intuition to make your selections. The results will be hidden until the next blog when the results are revealed. We will go round by round until we have a winner. Who knows? Maybe our selection will be the only winner this season.
This is all hypothetical. However you want to analyze things, go for it. If you want to assume every team has full health, go for it. Anything goes in the Coronavirus era of hypothetical playoff hockey.
Here are the results of round 1 from the Mario Lemieux Division
(3) Coloado Avalanche vs (30) Ottawa Senators
We can’t even get this many people to believe Coronavirus is serious. Not a lot of love for the Ottawa Senators here.
My vote was for Colorado
(6) Philadelphia Flyers vs (27) Anaheim Ducks
The flying V took a flying L
My vote was for Philadelphia
(7) Pittsburgh Penguins vs. (26) New Jersey Devils
Who would have thought the Penguins would win in a runaway on the Penguins blog?
My vote was indeed for Pittsburgh (10) Dallas Stars vs (23) Chicago Blackhawks
My vote was for Dallas (11) Carolina Hurricanes vs (22) Arizona Coyotes
My vote was for Carolina
(14) New York Islanders vs (19) Nashville Predators
We have our first “upset… of the tournament where the higher seed did not win. The voters were not impressed with the Islanders past month and a half and neither was I.
My vote was for Nashville
(15) Winnipeg Jets vs (18) Florida Panthers
I really thought the voting would be closer on this one, but the overwhelming support was for Winnipeg. I think the rosters are close in talent, but when I voted I kept going back to Hellebuyck vs Bobrovsky.
My vote went to Winnipeg
Those were all the matchups for round one in the Mario Lemieux Division. Here is the updated bracket
Round 2 has some good ones and the St. Louis Blues will make their debut in the tournament against the Winnipeg Jets.
Tomorrow you will see the Jaromir Jagr Division bracket and vote on round one matchups. See you then.
Thanks for reading!